“Four large technology companies should not be allowed to limit evidence about Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs at an upcoming trial over no-hire agreements in Silicon Valley, according to a court document filed late on Thursday by employees suing the firms,” Dan Levine reports for Reuters. “Tech workers brought a class action lawsuit against Apple, Google Inc, Intel Inc and Adobe Systems Inc in 2011, alleging they conspired to avoid competing for each other’s employees in order to avert a salary war. Trial is scheduled to begin at the end of May on behalf of roughly 64,000 workers in the class, and plaintiffs say damages could top $3 billion.”

“The case, which is closely watched in Silicon Valley, is largely built on emails among top executives, including Apple’s late chief executive Jobs and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt,” Levine reports. “In one instance, after a Google recruiter solicited an Apple employee, Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be fired, court documents show. Jobs then forwarded Schmidt’s note to a top Apple human resources executive with a smiley face appended.”

Levine reports, “Additionally, the plaintiffs seek to introduce evidence about the personal wealth of executives like Google co-founder Sergey Brin – and how it could be enhanced by holding down workers’ salaries and boosting margins, according to the filing.”

I was duped. The anti-poaching allegations were all made up. No one was harmed and everyone was able to get work wherever they could get more money. I guess no one wanted to pay them more. It’s all good.

I love the excuse, I’m sure Apple will use too, of pointing to everyone else and saying they were just doing what everyone else was doing. At some point, Tim Cook needs to grow a set of balls, and decide this is unjust and immoral and abolish these oppressive and obnoxious no-hire deals. The only way for evil to prevail is for supposedly good people to sit back and to let it persist. I hope Apple, Google, Microsoft, and any other company gets what they deserve.

Cook was never responsible for these. This has Jobs’ fingerprints all over it, just like the options backdating scandal. Jobs was a hero, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t have major fuckups.

The companies in question made anti-poaching agreements, these we not “no hire” agreements. They agreed not to actively try it steal each other’s employees. They did not agree to refuse to hire each other’s employees. This is a huge disctinction, and one which certain news outlets seem eager to mischaracterize. Whatever happened to fact checking and honest journalism?

The (innocent?) anti-poaching agreement doesn’t translate well down the chain of command. The instructions to the HR grunt at Google were going to be “Don’t hire anyone currently employed by Apple, Intel or Adobe”. End of story, no subtle distinctions.

Its hypocrisy that companies are willing collude to restrain natural market forces yet accuse the workers of a communist plot if they band together in a labor union to address the company with one voice. It should be illegal, not just a civil matter. If it wasn’t wrong they wouldn’t be trying to conceal the evidence.